Monday, October 30, 2006

21 more days for the GMAT

Gooooo!

Sentence correction has improved more than expected, Critical reasoning is down while Reading Comprehension holds steady.

How do people come up with a rating and say that they are getting 98% or some figure like that? does that mean that literally they are only making 2 mistakes out of 100 questions? Or are they weighting their results like the GMAT itself?

I've got tempura seaweed. Good stuff to keep me going.

I think I'm going to put on weight over the next 3 weeks :(

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Kaplan rates my GMAT at 530.

That is horrible. Even though I know Kaplan scores you lower. But still.

And I can't seem to get myself going and score better. My quant is going down the drain even on practices!!! I AM NOT SMOKING THE RIGHT STUFF!!!

Either that or I just suck at this and need more practice.

Hmm.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Even just applying to go to business school takes on a lifestyle of its own.

You spend hours in introspection, worrying about what to write, how to write and whether it will value add to your application. You wonder about the best way to present the facts, exaggarating the good and polishing the bad. You construct sentences that are concise but laden with your best information. Write - read - rewrite - read - rewrite. On and on the process goes.

In the process you learn about yourself. You approach information more critically. Things are measured and evaluated. You talk to people with the intent of learning more about yourself, about what makes you tick.

You begin to feel guilty when time that could have been spent improving your essays was spent on something else.

And this doesn't even cover what the GMAT does to you.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

So I decided it was time to commit myself to a date for the GMAT.

November 21st, 10am

I have slightly a month to bring my scores to the 700 level.

I also have only 1 1/2 months to finalise my essays and application for Tuck. The essays are hateful :(

now it's beginning to sink in how little time I have left....

Oh for an extra hour a day.

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It's very funny sometimes when I sit around with my colleagues and talk shop. Most of them wants to get out of their jobs, but we sit around with each other saying how much we love our jobs, that the learning is fantastic and wow, we love being on the team.

But when you get to know each other well, you start to realise that everybody wants out. maybe it's a case of the grass is greener on the other side. The most common thing I hear is that somebody wants to leave the bank and start something on their own. Either everybody is an entrepreneur at heart, or thinks that being an entrepreneur is glamorous and fantastic.

So far though, I've managed to keep doing an MBA to myself. I guess it pays to be cautious and to show an interest in the job. I'm not even getting my current supervisors to give a recommendation - simply because senior management thinks that MBAs are a waste of time. So hey, just in case I don't get accepted, I still need a job.

Haha.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Sample Test 1

Quant 44
Verbal 37
Total 640

:(

I have another 1 1/2 months of practice to bring it up to a 720! I've been slowly bringing up my score with every practice test. First it was 500, then 600 and now 640. I hope I don't hit diminishing returns this early.

A sample test a week, reading sentence correction rules everyday, and daily practice!

1/5 Essays for Tuck have been drafted. So another 2 months to finished it up nicely.
Recommendation requests have been sent out, transcripts requested.

I'm moving along now....

Maybe if I don't get into b-school I'll go and do another dot com. For gaming, since it's not that regulated in Asia (certain parts) and everybody knows that Asians just love to gamble!

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It's kind of sad that quite a number of b-school bloggers stop blogging regularly once they get into b-school. Must be the workload or something :)


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Man, my verbal sucks! :(